West Lothian 31/5

Wins for the rinks skipped by Raymond Logan Neil Speirs, and Andy Dunnett earned cheers from the home crowd banking while the defeat of Grant Logan, Sandy McDougall, and Thomas Mann were all single digit affairs.

It is a concern that Borders edged the first phase, 44-39, and the third, 43-35, however a spectacular 54-27 domination of the second delivered the much welcomed two win points needed to keep West Lothian in touch with table-toppers East Lothian and Midlothian. The match-winning performance was served up by Kirkliston veteran Raymond Logan who operated in ‘Super Ray’ mode to skip Darren Pearce, Scott Mushet, and Gary Smith to a 29-12 victory over ace Borders figure Stuart Bebbington. The ‘super ray’ highlight was a purple patch run of 1, 2, 5, 2, 1, 1 that accelerated his score from 10-8 to 22-8 then a later run of 2, 1, 4 to lead 29-9 confirmed the supremacy of his rink.

Speirs looked set for a drubbing at 11-0 down but the 2014 gold medal star rallied his rink of Steven Forrest, Andy Walker Jnr, and brother James Speirs to a sensational spell of 3, 3, 2, 4, 1, (1), 7, 3 that fired them into a 23-12 lead and set up a 26-21 win over Graeme Forsyth. Dunnett and his front-three of Ewan Shearer, Scott Logan, and Calum Logan dipped from 5-1 up to 13-6 down before displaying a positive mental toughness to battle back and steal an 18-16 win over Steve Richardson.

Grant Logan added 1, 4 to cross 18-15 after 15-ends but in the battle to the line was piped 22-21 by Ross Nichol while the rink of Frazer Muirhead, David Lamb, John Aitken, and Sandy McDougall lost a single at the last to suffer a 23-21 defeat from Stuart White. Mann lost touch from 11-9 up to suffer a 20-13 setback at the hands of Ian Crawford. This weekend fixture has a must win look about it with WL tackling an undefeated Midlothian at Loanhead MW.
The Under 25 brigade of West Lothian suffered a first defeat in their Scottish League campaign and paid a heavy price with the 130-119 disappointment causing them to be denied the top of the section-qualifying place on shot margin by Stirlingshire. The game-changing score in the match makes painful reading for the luckless Jack Murphy of Bellsburn with his rink suffering a 37-8 thumping that added heavily to the 3 and 6 shot defeat of Jordan Pearce and Connor McKendrick, respectively. Wins on three WL rinks were registered by Robbie Cuthill (31-15), Jamie Edwards (23-15), and Rory Walker (22-19).

Murphy’s discomfort continued in Monday nights First Round proper of the Jack High Insurance sponsored Junior Open for The Fred Meikle Trophy as he bit the dust at the hands of defending champion Calum Logan in a 21-18 thriller at Kinneil. A tension filled climax at Pumpherston saw Ryan Laurie of East Calder clinch a 21-20 win over Callum Busby of Blackburn while another hard fought battle saw Joe Sutherland of Whitburn survive at the 21-19 expense of Declan Rennie (Winchburgh) at Kirkliston.

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